Rookie Casinos Overzealous in Busting Casino Cheats Getting in Trouble With the Law!

I have been blogging about new casinos in Pennsylvania, Delaware and other areas overzealously arresting casino cheats (in some case over $5), and now this practice appears to have jumped up and bitten one of these new casinos on the nose.

Derek Maple, a 27 year-old former blackjack dealer at the Mardi Gras Racing and Casino near Charleston, West Virginia, has sued the casino and two state agencies for false arrest, alleging they falsely accused him of cheating while dealing his blackjack game. He is also suing the casino, the West Virginia State Police and the Virginia Lottery Commission for civil rights violations, false imprisonment, mental anguish and damage to his reputation, self-esteem, among other things.

Back in September, 2009, the Mardi Gras casino and state police accused Maple of voluntarily revealing his hole card to players at his blackjack table. He was later arrested and booked, and at a preliminary hearing the charges were passed over to a grand jury for indictment. But the grand jury never indicted, and since a year had passed, the case was automatically dismissed under West Virginia law, opening up the door for Maple to sue, whether or not he was actually guilty of the casino-cheating charges. Maple is seeking unspecified damages, but to me it sounds like a lot! Probably millions.

And this is not the first false-arrest/civil rights-violation suit against the Mardi Gras casino and West Virgina state police over a casino case. A woman named Thuhuong Nguyen also filed suit last January, alleging she was wrongly arrested for cheating at gaming. Cheating charges against her were dropped after a review of video surveillance. The casino had accused her of being an accomplice of Maple in the hole-card cheat scam.

My take: You've all heard the poker saying "...gotta know when to hold 'em...know when to fold 'em," right? Well, these casinos gotta "know when to hold 'em...know when to let 'em go," right?

You bet

Just How Much Will Poker Bots Cheating Evolve in Online Poker?

The answer to that question is "LOTS!" You may have heard about the recent Korean and Chinese online poker-bot scandals, all of which have been significantly profitable, but this is just the tip of the "botberg!" Poker bots with artificial intelligence and anti-detection programming built-in are already good enough to be profitable in fifty to sixty percent of middle-limit and high-limit games, as well as tournaments. In the lower-limit games they are already cleaning up.

This situation will only get better for the botters. I predict that within 5 years sophisticated and VERY intelligent poker bots will dominate the online poker scene and consistently beat online poker's best "botless" players. I also think that within 7 years the majority of ALL online poker players will be using poker bots, for if they don't they will be at a real disadvantage.

My take on my take: Wise up now and get your bot!

Ex-PokerStars Employee Says That Giant Online Site Gave Up Battle Against Poker Cheats Online!

all the online poker sites are fighting an almost hopeless war against the cheats these days, and many of them, including PokerStars, the biggest of 'em all, are attributing it to the huge growth the entire industry is experiencing.

A former member of PokerStars' staff has said that the giant site even gave up on trying to stop the cheats. Speaking anonymously to the BBC "5 Live Investigates" program, he said, "We had a hard job keeping up, just because of the volume of complaints from players about suspected cheating incidents. Not that all of the complaints were legitimate...ninety-five percent were from bitter customers because they lost, and there was no collusion. But Pokerstars still pledged to investigate them all."

My take: At least the guy is honest!

However, the former employee went on to state that during his time working for the site, the staff turned off the automatic alerts that red-flagged possible cases of collusion and other forms of online poker cheating because they were simply overwhelmed by the huge number of alerts hitting the system.

UK's BBC Airs Big Investigation into Online Poker Cheating and Collusion and Bot Cheat Play...Anything New?

In the US, the CBS News magazine show "60 Minutes" aired its own investigation into online poker cheats and cheating, especially detailing the huge poker cheating scandal at UltimateBet.com (now UB.com) and former WSOP World Champion Russ Hamilton's role in orchestrating it.

Now, in reaction to the recent Chinese bot/collusion poker scam that hit the world's largest online site, PokerStars.com, the UK's BBC network has over the weekend broadcast its own investigation into online poker cheating. I will not even bother linking to it...not becasue it isn't a quality and thorough look at online poker cheating and all its various methods but simply because it is nearly an exact copy of what CBS News told the world on its "60 Minutes" segment nearly a year ago. There's nothing new in the BBC version, so the beat goes on--until another big online poker cheat scam hits the airways!

That I promise to link you to!